Sharp Practices!

Sean Bean returned to the role of Richard Sharpe, after a nine year absence from the small screen, this weekend on ITV1 in the two-part story "Sharpe's Challenge". Based on three of Bernard Cornwell's novels, this adventure is set in Jaipur one year on from Napoleon's demise at the Battle of Waterloo. It sees Sean reunited with director Tom Clegg and sparring partner Daragh O'Malley, as Sergeant Patrick Harper, whom he sets out to find on a mission to India, but on the pretext of looking for General Burroughs' daughter Celia who has been kidnapped and is held hostage against attack at Khande Rao's fort.

Sharpe's opposition on this occasion is a rogue East India Company officer, Colonel William Dodd, played by Toby Stephens, able to put his fencing skills to good use again after his appearance as the villain Gustav Graves in the James Bond movie "Die Another Day"! The real power behind young maharajah Khande Rao, Dodd is aided and abetted against the English by the late maharajah's favourite consort, Madhuvanthi, played by Salman Rushdie's wife Padma Lakshmi. She tries to seduce Sharpe but, naturally, he's having none of it! And, not surprisingly, Sharpe has unfinished business with the Colonel! Dodd lays a trap for the troops of the East India Company who are coerced by General Sir Henry Simmerson into attacking the fort, regardless of the consequences to the indisposed General's daughter, and thus the stage is set for the final battle...

Watching the "Behind the Scenes" documentary after the concluding episode, on ITV3, it's a wonder the programme ever got made! The number of extras, and costumes required for them, hand-built rifles and cannons, learning how to become a soldier in ten days flat, not to mention Sean and Toby going down with Delhi belly both on the same day! But the finished product was a treat with a terrific cliffhanger at the end of episode one which wasn't immediately spoiled in the next time trailer! Having infiltrated the enemy, and unrecognised by Dodd, Sharpe has to prove his new found loyalty to the young maharajah when he is ordered by the Colonel to shoot his best friend...

If you missed it, and want to find out whether or not Harper survives, after all Sharpe is a good shot, the best, then the DVD is out at the beginning of May! It's worth seeing just for Peter-Hugo Daly's performance as Sergeant Shadrach Bickerstaff, a constant thorn in Sharpe's side, who steals every scene he is in with consummate ease!

Wolf to the Slaughter

Last year it was Dickens. Now, in the second episode in the new series of "Doctor Who", it's the turn of Queen Victoria to team up with our time-travelling hero. Pauline Collins acquits herself well as the monarch having previously appeared in the series back in the mid-Sixties, as Samantha Briggs, opposite Patrick Troughton in a story called "The Faceless Ones". In fact, she was offered the role of companion but turned it down and Deborah Watling, as Victoria Waterfield, joined the Tardis crew instead, in the second episode of "The Evil of the Daleks". In a recent press release, Pauline is quoted as saying she was in one of the few episodes without Daleks! A little far from the truth in that the second Doctor was only pitted against them twice, both in his first of three years in the programme. As an aside, I dislike the substitution of the word episode for story, when a story comprises of more than one episode. It's a careless use of language which only leads to confusion!

"Tooth and Claw" is possibly Russell's finest script for the programme to date. I thought so on first viewing, despite a few reservations, and, on the whole, it is a much grittier affair than last week's opening tale. In the "Doctor Who Confidential" documentary, "Fear Factor", shown immediately afterwards on BBC3, the chief writer and executive producer commented that you won't see a better teaser than that created for his interpretation of the lycanthropy myth and, apart from the weedy scream immediately preceding the opening titles, he might well be right. The humour written for Rose, however, only served to undermine the strengths of the story and I would've preferred to see more time spent developing the relationship between her and servant girl Flora as Mark Gatiss did last year with Gwyneth in "The Unquiet Dead". Ruth Milne's facial responses to the action expressed many emotions in place of having little dialogue. Maybe her part might have been fleshed out better over two episodes?

The story borrowed imagery from a number of well-known science fiction and horror films. In the pre-titles sequence it was "The Matrix". The demise of the Steward was lifted, literally, from "Alien 3", specifically the abrupt exit of Brian Glover's character, prison warder Andrews. Both deaths happen after trying, momentarily, to wrong-foot the audience by reassuring us that all is well! The modern interpretation of the transformation from man to wolf has now been done many times, originally in John Landis's "An American Werewolf in London" and, also, to great effect, in Neil Jordan's adaptation of several short stories by Angela Carter, "The Company of Wolves". I liked the distant establishing shots of Torchwood House in the glen, of which there were three throughout. They reminded me of Hammer films and RTD has stated this was his take on their Oliver Reed movie, "The Curse of the Werewolf". Good thing Russell was unambiguous as Hammer only made one werewolf feature!

New New Post!

This time last year, while waiting for "Doctor Who" to return to our screens after an absence of almost sixteen years, no-one knew exactly what to expect. One year on and it's pretty much business as usual! Now we can predict the type of story RTD will deliver with ease. My one cause for optimism this season is that Russell has penned fewer of the thirteen episodes. He wrote eight of Season One's run whereas for Season Two he has written five. Combined, he has written a whole season's worth of material over two years and, if he gives the Christmas episode to another writer this year, Russell has written exactly half of the Doctor's air time.

Maybe the other writers' scripts are stronger because they are only writing one or two episodes a year and, although he claims otherwise, Russell is perhaps spreading himself too thinly. As well as being the chief writer, he is also the Executive Producer of "Doctor Who" and presumably has been busy setting up its spin-off series "Torchwood". Where "Buffy" had her "Angel", the Doctor has his Captain Jack! My gut feeling, however much I try to deny it to myself, is that this most British of shows doesn't work in the American format. "Doctor Who" works best as a series of serials, one of the main reasons for its enduring uniqueness. I miss the time taken to tell a story properly and I miss the cliffhanger...

In the 2003 documentary "The Story of Doctor Who", recently repeated at the end of BBC3's "Doctor Who Night", Colin Baker partly attributes the failure of his Doctor to find mass appeal to the reformatted structure of 1985's Season Twenty-two. In particular, Colin blames the consequential reduction in the number of cliffhangers. This only served to lessen the impact of a story when changing from three, found in the traditional-length story of four twenty-five minute episodes, to one, as seen in the two forty-five minute episode design. Ironically, Colin has subsequently gone on to praise new "Doctor Who" which, under the guidance of RTD, has seen a further reduction in the number of cliffhangers to three per season!

This year we can look forward to mid-story cliffhangers in both Cybermen adventures and in the tale set on the alien planet. Another irony is that the weakest point of Cyber-director Graeme Harper's previous work on "Doctor Who" are his mid-story cliffhangers, specifically the lumbering and wooden Magma beast in "The Caves of Androzani" and the Garden of Fond Memories' falling statue in "Revelation of the Daleks"! His two other cliffhangers, at the end of episodes one and three of "The Caves of Androzani", featuring, firstly, the execution of the robed fifth Doctor and Peri and, latterly, the spacecraft hurtling towards the planet, are both topnotch moments.

"New Earth" was fun, moved at the usual rollicking pace, but ultimately empty. Bite-size "Doctor Who", never mind Tardisodes! It had ideas but was too short to allow them any development. Composer Benjamin Britten said ideas are two-a-penny but turning them into a structured composition in which you evolve an argument to a satisfactory conclusion is another thing altogether.

The Doctor's intention from the outset is to visit the hospital so why materialise so far away? When Colin Baker's Doctor did this in "Revelation" everyone complained. Perhaps the cost of parking at a hospital, so far in the future, has increased astronomically! That might account for so many flying cars which could be seen in longshot but were miraculously absent in closeup! Rose possessed brought to mind the Rani impersonating Mel in Sylvester McCoy's debut. Zoe Wanamaker's Cassandra, reportedly inspired by seeing a very slim Nicole Kidman on the red carpet at some awards ceremony, at the end of the episode reminded me more of Mariah Carey, full of her own self-importance. Chip viewing the opening action in his sphere, through the eyes of the spider, was traditional so why can't we see a return to a season of multi-part stories and, thus, a reinstatement of the time-honoured cliffhanger?

To Be Continued...

"Doctor Who", Old or New?

If, on the subject of "Doctor Who", I was to talk about a race of cat people, battling Cybermen, confronting werewolves, a school with a strange headmaster, a fun adventure set in the 1950s and a meeting with the Queen, no less, you might think I was eulogising about the Sylvester McCoy era, specifically "Survival", "Silver Nemesis", "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy", "Remembrance of the Daleks", "Delta and the Bannermen" and "Silver Nemesis" again! But... I could just as easily be looking forward to the new season of "Doctor Who", David Tennant's first and Billie Piper's second, which starts in nine days time, and anticipating "New Earth", "Rise of the Cybermen", "Tooth and Claw", "School Reunion", "The Idiot's Lantern" and "Tooth and Claw" again!! My point is either that there seems to be nothing new under the sun or that Russell T Davies is a fan of the underrated seventh Doctor!!!

Sarah Jane is back and so is K9. Why are these two paired together again as if somehow inseparable, like Davros and his creations were until last year? Lis Sladen had left "Doctor Who" by the time Bob Baker and Dave Martin introduced the cute cure-all for Tom Baker's Doctor and have only previously been joined at the hip in the spin-off "K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend" and "The Five Doctors", and RTD is on record for his dislike of multiple Doctor stories!

Cassandra and The Face of Boe are returning in episode one. It looks like RTD is trying to build a mythology around characters he has devised, and his spin-off "Torchwood" for Captain Jack tends to back up this argument. I don't really care for Lady C or the, "Dune" influenced, giant head in a tank! The space station episodes "The End of the World", "The Long Game" and "Bad Wolf" were my least favourite outings last year. In forty years time, if/when the powers that be resurrect "Doctor Who" again it will be the Daleks and Cybermen that the public will expect. If they can't remember Nabil Shaban's brilliant performance as Sil in "Vengeance on Varos" in the 80s, and 20 years on no-one is clamouring for the return of this excellent Mentor, then why would they crave lesser creations unless marketing plays a hand?

I've also heard the Autons are back... again! Perhaps RTD feels he didn't do them justice last year. In the 80s "Doctor Who" was criticised for revisiting its past too often. Maybe that's why the Autons weren't actually referred to by name in "Rose". At the same time the new show was distancing itself from the original 26-year run, by calling itself Series One, in publicity Chris Eccleston's Doctor was continually referred to as the ninth! That's known as having your cake and eating it!!

"Doctor Who" fans now seem afraid to criticise their favourite show for fear of cancellation. They were partly blamed for the programme's fall from grace 20 years ago and probably don't want to be held accountable again but you can only improve on something through constructive criticism. I personally feel Russell would have made a better series pre-"Buffy". I thought he was the right choice to make new "Who", in the early 90s, after seeing his two children's serials "Dark Season" and "Century Falls". But now he seems to want to be Joss Whedon. The first thing my Mum said when she saw Billie swinging on a chain in "Rose" was "Buffy"!

The new "Doctor Who Adventures" comic/magazine, for 6 to 12 year olds, claims, on its front cover, the inclusion of an "awesome" comic strip! A further example of not just the move towards the Americanisation of the most British of shows but also displaying complete thoughtlessness with regard the education of the children of this country. Why pander to the American culture that so carelessly refers to Chris Eccleston as a Cockney dude?!! I never laughed as much as when I read that comment! I shouldn't have though because the ignorance of this "journalist" is truly pathetic. A little research into British culture/accents was all that was required. I laughed again when its writer retracted, hopefully with irony, to Geordie!! That's, like, totally radical man!!!

It might sound as though I'm not looking forward to the new season but nothing could be further from the truth. I love the programme and just want it to be as it once claimed... "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy". But, everyone has their own vision and mine doesn't include casting Trisha Goddard, Barbara Windsor and Derek Acorah in exactly the same position this season as Anne Robinson, Davina McCall et al. were cast in the last! The Doctor can go anywhere. Why a chat show? Neither would the Daleks trouble themselves with game shows in order to invade Earth as Russell attempted to make us believe previously!!! Can't RTD write a story grounded in something other than extremely lowbrow, popular-but-trash, television?

I have no problem with the casting of Peter Kay as Victor Kennedy in "Love & Monsters". If Johnny Vegas can do "Bleak House" then I see no reason why Peter Kay shouldn't be a success in "Doctor Who". If the aforementioned trio of Trisha, Babs and the ghostbuster weren't playing themselves then maybe they wouldn't be problematical either. I've nothing against "Carry On" actors appearing in "Doctor Who" as some fans rallied against in the 80s. That seemed strange when the first Doctor himself had taken the lead in the original "Carry On Sergeant"! Perhaps director Graeme Harper will have the Cybermen storm the set of the chat show and leave nothing in their wake!!!

A for "A for Andromeda"!

What a pleasant change to see science fiction being treated seriously and played straight! Hot on the heels of the Patrick Stewart vehicle "Eleventh Hour" comes a remake of the seven-part 1961 serial "A for Andromeda" as a follow-up to last year's BBC4 remake of "The Quatermass Experiment". Richard Fell was given the task of updating and condensing astronomer Fred Hoyle and John Elliot's original, and actress Kelly Reilly, starring alongside Tom Hardy, Jane Asher and David Haig, became the third actress to play Andromeda, following in the footsteps of Julie Christie and Susan Hampshire.

The story opens with a listening station picking up a signal from the Andromeda Galaxy that turns out to be instructions, in binary, detailing how to build a super-computer. Once active, the computer kills one of the scientific community, Christine, and creates a living being, with all the machine's knowledge, in her image. The themes of mankind's arrogance, humanity's inability to self-discipline, and the self-sacrifice of the Andromedan android, making her more human than human, have undoubtedly been done-to-death over the past 45 years but probably seemed fresh to a television audience in the early '60s.

References to E-mails and Firewalls, early on, placed the story in the modern world as did the now seemingly-obligatory popular culture reference, in this instance to "Deep Space Nine", though in a much less heavy-handed fashion than crowbaring three lowbrow game shows into the penultimate episode of last year's season of "Doctor Who"! Ultimately, like the mid-1970s' "Doctor Who" story "The Brain of Morbius", "A for Andromeda" is a reworking of "Frankenstein", a morality tale warning us of the error of playing God. There are a further two opportunities to see the production this coming Friday, again on BBC4.

Geeson in Outer Space!

This Sunday, on ITV4 at 7pm, and repeated in the early hours of the following morning, there is an opportunity to see one of the best episodes of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's "Space: 1999", "Another Time, Another Place". Originally shown sixteenth, on Thursday, 18 December, 1975, as part of the first-season run of twenty-four, the episode guest stars one of my favourite actresses of the Seventies, Judy Geeson. She plays Regina Kesslann who suffers an emotional breakdown, after the moon passes through a rift in space, believing Eagle pilot Alan Carter to be her husband! In need of medical attention, she is pictured above with series regular Barbara Bain as Doctor Helena Russell.

Judy has had a long and varied career dating from a 1961 episode of "Dixon of Dock Green" through episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager" and an appearance in "Charmed". Her roles have shown much diversity. She held her own as John Hurt's wife, Beryl Evans, opposite Richard Attenborough's extremely unnerving portrayal of serial killer John Reginald Christie in "10 Rillington Place", in 1971. A decade later she was Sandy in the notoriously grisly science fiction horror film "Inseminoid". On TV, in 1976, she portrayed Fulvia in the recently-released-on-DVD feminist science fiction series "Star Maidens" and, perhaps more notably, played Susan Mount, alongside Anthony Andrews, in the 1979 war drama "Danger UXB".

In "Another Time, Another Place", the crew of Moonbase Alpha finally return home only to discover an identical moon already orbiting the Earth. They have travelled through time and caught up with their future selves. Not only that, Regina is discovered to have two brains!! The episode is the first of many written by series' script editor Johnny Byrne who went on to write for "All Creatures Great and Small", "Doctor Who" and, most recently, ITV family drama "Heartbeat" which he also devised. Australian actor Nick Tate, who played Captain Carter in both seasons of the show, has often said "Another Time, Another Place" is his favourite episode of "Space: 1999".

Marvellous Marple!

I half expected "Agatha Christie's Marple" to be a little on the stodgy side but "The Moving Finger" turned out to be great fun. This was partly due to the all-star cast but also the knowing screenplay by Kevin Elyot which contained many laugh-out-loud moments at the numerous in-jokes. Best of these sprung from Ken Russell's character, the Reverend Caleb Dane Calthrop, speaking out against fornication, in the knowledge that the director-turned-actor himself has built a career making movies on that selfsame subject, from "Women in Love" to "Mahler", "Lisztomania" to "Tommy"!

The preview I read called the casting of Ken, together with comedian Harry Enfield as the dastardly uptight solicitor Richard Symmington, dodgy thus missing the point that this production intended itself as self-mocking. From the opening shots of playboy and World War II veteran Jerry Burton, played by James D'Arcy, first on his motorcycle and then in a red sports car with sister Joanna, a red-headed Emilia Fox, so blatantly filmed as period parody in the style of the time against a back projection, the story always managed to entertain.

I missed Paul McGann in last week's opening episode but "Doctor Who" Jon Pertwee's son Sean was on hand this week as the rather nervous Dr. Owen Griffith and I believe "Doctor Who" companion Bonnie Langford appears in the next yarn as a pushy mother! The poison-pen letters in "The Moving Finger" turn out to be one enormous red herring which distract Inspector Graves, a superb turn from Keith Allen, into hilariously staking out the women's institute's typewriter! Credit must also be given to John Session's Cardew Pye, as gay as the name sounds, reminding me of Nickolas Grace's performance as stuttering Anthony Blanche in "Brideshead Revisited"!

Another interesting piece of casting was that of ex-"Big Breakfast" presenter Kelly Brook as governess Elsie Holland who gains a place in the affections of our hero Jerry before he realises he is in love with Megan Hunter, played to perfection by Talulah Riley (pictured) fresh from her success as Mary Bennet in the recent movie version of "Pride and Prejudice". The ye-olde-worlde scenes of Lymstock, a typically idyllic-seeming English country village, were picture-postcard perfect and made me think I was still watching "The Avengers"!!! Highly recommended.

Friend or Foe?

I suppose this contradicts what I was saying in my last post, to a certain extent, but we are all full of contradictions! "Friend or Foe" is the new single by t.A.T.u. out this week, taken from their second album "Dangerous and Moving". Reviews have been poor, asking what happened to the t.A.T.u. that gave us "All the Things She Said", but all the trademark sonorities are still in place... high vocal line, synthesiser solo etc.

The song is by Dave Stewart, Annie Lennox's sparring partner firstly in The Tourists, who I saw support Roxy Music in Leicester before they became famous, and more recently in Eurythmics. A few years back Stewart worked with Bryan Ferry on his solo album "Frantic". The sleeve of the new t.A.T.u. CD single was taken by Bryan Adams and the track itself features ex-Police frontman Sting on bass! One reviewer described Stewart/Adams/Sting as the unholy trinity. I don't quite know what religion has to do with it?!!

Pictured at the piano is Lena Katina, one half of the duo t.A.T.u., during the shooting of the video for "Friend or Foe". It is unlikely to be number one this Sunday. That dubious honour will no doubt fall to Leo Sayer for only the second time in his career.

Setting the World on Fire?

Sometimes, I wonder why I like pop music? There is so much rubbish about, people with no talent earning millions, and it isn't just a modern phenomenon. It has always been the case. Boybands with their supposed good looks appealing to teenage girls, boybands with guitars (as if the mere act of holding an instrument gives them some kind of credibility), youngish females - with precious little clothing - selling the fantasy of sex... all have absolutely nothing to do with music. The irony is that these folk are convinced they have talent. They are arrogant. Real musicians know there is always room for improvement and always doubt their own ability!

When listening to a piece of "classical" music that takes a theme and develops it, as opposed to repeating it over and over ad nauseam, it makes me wonder why I like any pop music. But I try to keep an open mind and seek out the good in things. Recently, I discovered a band from Montreal, Canada called Arcade Fire. I'd seen and heard them on "Later with Jools", towards the end of last year, and their sound caught my attention but I thought no more of it until recently when, flicking through the channels, I landed on E4 and the video of "Rebellion (Lies)" was playing. I'm a sucker for rock bands that use orchestral instruments, especially strings!

It's probably George Martin we have to thank for the addition of strings on pop records not to mention the piccolo trumpet! As can be seen in the photo, Arcade Fire use a range of instruments adding a couple of violins, a doublebass and accordion to those of a traditional rock band. That already makes them intriguing. Coupled with the plaintive cry of the lead singer, I've started to ask myself whether or not this group could be the new Roxy Music? I've asked myself that many times, over the past thirty years, about groups ranging from Sparks to The Stranglers, Magazine to Portishead, to name but four! Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)", from the album "Funeral", is an uplifting pop song, far removed from the bland mainstream, and thus worth consideration.

Who Watches the Watchers?

"The Ghost Squad" is a gritty new police drama series that seemed to pass most people by as last year drew to a close. Broadcast in November and December by Channel 4, it concerned the undercover operations of Detective Constable Amy Harris portrayed by superb Irish actress Elaine Cassidy, pictured here in the series finale. Each episode, armed with elaborate cover stories, Amy's job is to infiltrate the lives of potentially corrupt policemen and women to weed out the bent officers. The title refers to a real-life police unit, now thought to have been disbanded, which was set up in the Nineties to investigate malpractice in the Met. Amy plays a dangerous game working with coppers who take her into their confidence, where any hint that her real intention might be to expose them could threaten her life...

Elaine Cassidy first came to my attention playing opposite Bob Hoskins in Atom Egoyan's very dark film thriller "Felicia's Journey". She has continued to impress since, again with Hoskins, in a BBC television adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" and, more recently, in "Fingersmith" for which she was voted ninth equal best actress, in the BBC's online end-of-year poll, with Sally Hawkins, her co-star in that production.

The principal writer of "The Ghost Squad" is Tom Grieves and the series is produced by Chris Clough. Both have previous cop-show experience working on "The Bill" together although this new series is shot more in the style of "The Cops". Chris was also Producer of seasons four and five of "Ballykissangel" before which he directed several "Doctor Who" adventures in the late Eighties.

"The Ghost Squad" was initially intended to be broadcast in eight one-hour episodes but, for some reason, Channel 4 decided to broadcast the last two as a feature-length finale featuring "Hustle" actor Adrian Lester as the policeman under investigation. Whether they did this to make it seem like a Christmas special or to get the series over and done to make way for "Shameless" in the New Year, possibly because of poor viewing figures, is anybody's guess but it was good to see the police format being tested once again even if some critics didn't find it entirely successful! I, for one, would certainly welcome a second season.